Chapter 9: Winter Table text
Christmas invitations required new choreography.
Lorraine asked whether I preferred to host a small meal in Atlanta or to join them at their house for a few hours on Christmas Day. I chose the few hours at theirs, on the condition that I would leave before the evening settled into logistics I had not been asked to manage. She agreed. Kevin was polite in the doorway. The children showed me drawings and a science project that involved too much glitter. I praised the glitter. We ate. I did not stay to wash dishes. When I left, Lorraine walked me to the car and said thank you—not for gifts, for coming on terms that did not require me to shrink. I told her that was the only kind of invitation I accepted now. She nodded as if she were still practicing the motion.
New Year’s Eve I spent with my sister in Macon. We cooked too much black-eyed peas and laughed about old neighbors. Samuel’s name came up the way it always did in that kitchen—without ceremony, with fondness. She asked if I missed the lake. I said I missed the dream of it more than the wood and water. The dream had been for a family that made room. When the family stopped making room, the wood and water became someone else’s honest purchase. She poured more tea and let that be enough.
